The Cider House Rules

by John Irving

St. Cloud’s. The determined boy

unplanted, eroded by the river floods—guess who is the insatiable destroyer

his hands pitchy and his fingers

improvement, and for the good of

has so clearly flourished if not

Mrs.

never

the burning sensation he experienced, both when he urinated and when he dreamed. This singular and painful encounter with sexual pleasure—

Cirrhosis

time the fierce bacteria had burned

and giving the mother some ergot,

pathologist respectfully. “She wasn’t a

her dirty-blond hair caught in her

there were no trees. Homer Wells knew that birds didn’t deliver

laugh. “Listen, Homer,” Dr. Larch

Maine names. (Inhale, exhale.) Wilbur

Nobleboro and Waldoboro, there was Wiscasset and West Bath, Damariscotta and Friendship, Penobscot Bay and Sagadahoc Bay, Yarmouth and Camden, Rockport and Arundel, Rumford and Biddeford and Livermore Falls. East of Cape Kenneth, the tourist trap, lies Heart’s Haven; inland from the small, pretty harbor town that’s called a haven squats the town of Heart’s Rock. The rock in Heart’s Rock is named for the uninhabited rock island that appears to float like a dead whale in the otherwise perfect harbor of Heart’s Haven. It is an eyesore island, unloved by the people of Heart’s Haven; perhaps they were moved to name the eyesore town of Heart’s Rock after their bird-beshitted and fish-belly-white rock. Nearly covered at high tide, and lying fairly flat in the water, it lists slightly—hence its name: Dead Whale Rock. There is no actual “rock” in Heart’s Rock, which is not a town deserving to be looked down upon; it is only five miles inland, and from some of its hills the ocean is visible; in most of the town, the sea breeze is refreshingly felt. But compared to Heart’s Haven, every other town is a mongrel. When condemning Heart’s Rock, the people of Heart’s Haven do not mention the simple quaintness of the town’s only stores—Sanborn’s General Store and Titus Hardware and Plumbing. The people of Heart’s Haven are more likely to mention Drinkwater Lake, and the summer cottages on its murky shores. A not-very-fresh freshwater lake, more of a pond—because by mid-July the bottom is cl...

(and in clothes)—he knew almost everything about money and

college accent, without which she might not have enticed Wallace

colored muck from the middle of the

Despite the fact that Ray Kendall

flip it at the speaker (all rolled up in its

you for the first time and could keep the

he thought—if only I could have come up